


Make the Season Bright

by RushingHeadlong



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Christmas, Christmas Presents, Fluff, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:27:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28267611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RushingHeadlong/pseuds/RushingHeadlong
Summary: Brian wants to get his friends the perfect Christmas gifts this year but try as he might, he finds that he’s completely out of ideas - and with the holiday only a few days away, he’s completely out of time as well.
Relationships: Brian May/Roger Taylor
Comments: 7
Kudos: 26





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written because I was having a small panic about my own Christmas shopping (though, thankfully, not quite at the last minute like poor Brian here).
> 
> This fic is set in December 1978. The first leg of the Jazz Tour ended on December 20th, so I’m assuming that the band flew home on the 21st and the fic starts late that night.

Brian stares down at the paper in front of him and with a frustrated sigh he scribbles out the last few ideas that he had written down. His pen tip catches on the paper and tears through it, and Brian scowls as he balls up the now-useless piece of paper and chucks it over his shoulder to join the half-dozen others that he’s gone through so far this night. He’ll have to clean those up before Roger wakes up, but the night is still young and Brian doesn’t want to move from his spot at the desk now in case he gets distracted from his task at hand.

On the other side of the living room, the clock on the mantle starts to chime the hour and Brian pauses in reaching for another piece of paper to count them out. _One, two, three_ … Brian’s heart sinks a little bit more with each chime, and when the twelfth one finally rings out Brian groans and buries his face in his hands.

Midnight. Another day gone, another day closer to Christmas, and Brian still has no idea what gifts he’s giving to his friends this year.

He feels so stupid for not having this sorted out sooner. It was easy to find gifts for his parents so he thought it would be easy to find gifts for Freddie and John too, but that didn’t end up being the case. He’s even drawing a complete blank for Roger, and Brian has known him the longest and is now _dating_ him, for christ’s sake! What does it say about him that he can’t even figure out what to give to his own boyfriend?

The problem is that they all have money now. Brian would never want to go back to the days where they were struggling to make ends meet but it was undeniably easier to buy gifts for each other when they could pool their money to pick up one new album, or else celebrate by just paying for a few rounds of drinks at the pub.

These days, though, they all just buy whatever they want. Something will catch Freddie’s eye and by the end of the day he’s almost always sent someone out to get it for him. John is by far the most restrained out of all of them when it comes to shopping, but he’s still not afraid to spend his money on the things he truly wants and he has little use for the sort of decorative baubles that Brian usually defaults to when he doesn’t know what else to give someone.

And Roger… Somehow, Roger is worse than both of them.

He’s like a magpie, buying things that catch his fancy just because they’re shiny or new, only to lose interest in them quickly after. His tastes and interests seem to change so quickly that Brian sometimes struggles to keep up with it all, but the things that he really _loves_ he never wants to trade in for a new version. He doesn’t want a beautiful, hardcover copy of a Kerouac book because he’d rather read his warped and stained paperback version. He likes new guitars, but he only plays the same old acoustic despite the sizeable collection of other models that he owns.

Brian doesn’t want to give him a guitar anyway, though. He wants to give him something special, something meaningful… but what that _something_ could be, he still has no idea.

He grabs another piece of paper, draws three rough columns down it, writes his bandmates’ names across the top, and chews on the end of his pen as he tries to think of anything that he can give them for the looming holiday.

He doesn’t trust himself to buy clothes for any of them, and doesn’t really want to be the sort of guy that gives his friends jumpers for Christmas. Maybe as a joke, but Brian doesn’t want to give out gag gifts; he wants to find something them things that they’ll genuinely like, never mind that he’s rapidly running out of time here. Anything related to the band feels too impersonal - that’s work, after all, and they’re exchanging gifts not as coworkers but as friends - but even though he knows what their hobbies and interests are he finds himself second-guessing that knowledge now.

“Stupid,” he mutters around the pen in his mouth. He knocks his head against his closed fist and keeps muttering, “Stupid, stupid, stupid-”

“Brian?”

Brian jumps at the sudden voice behind him. He whirls around to face Roger and his pen clatters noisily across the desk before dropping off the far edge and rolling off to some dark corner of the room.

Great. He knows that he’s not going to be able to find that again.

Roger has clearly only just woken up, probably to grab a drink. He’s in just his underwear and an old t-shirt, the one concession he makes to the colder weather, since if he had his way he’d always sleep naked. He rubs at his eyes and blinks blearily at Brian and asks, “What’re you still doing up?”

“Just working on something,” Brian tells him. “Go back to bed.”

Roger, predictably, ignores him. “A new song?” he asks. He lightly kicks one of the discarded balls of paper near his feet, and Brian is seized with the sudden fear that Roger will pick one of them up and see all the idiotic Christmas gift ideas that he came up with over the last few hours.

“No. It’s nothing,” Brian says quickly. “Go back to sleep, Rog. I’ll come join you soon.”

“Mm, you better,” Roger says around a wide yawn. “‘s too cold in bed without you.”

Brian swallows down a lump in his throat as Roger goes back to bed, leaving the living room suddenly seeming darker and colder from his absence. He loves Roger so much that it takes his breath away, and he wants nothing more than to call it a night and join him under the blankets, wrap his arms around him and hold him close as he drifts off to sleep… but it’s because he loves Roger so much that he knows he can’t do that.

Roger deserves the world on a silver platter. And if Brian can’t give him that, he can at least give him - and Freddie and John - a Christmas present that isn’t utter garbage.

He stands up with a sigh and with one brief, longing look towards the doorway and the bedroom that lies beyond, he walks around the desk to look for his missing pen so he can get back to work.  
  


* * *

  
“So, what’s the plan for today?” Roger asks the next day as they finish up their breakfasts - though, really, it’s more accurate to call it a brunch, and a late one at that, and Roger is doing most of the eating. Brian rarely has an appetite when he first wakes up, especially when he had gotten so little sleep the night before, and he’s mostly just sipping at his cup of tea and moving food around on his plate.

Brian takes another sip of his drink now and hides behind his cup as he says, “I have some errands I need to run, actually.”

Brian’s answer makes Roger pause halfway through raising another piece of toast to his mouth. “Errands?” he echoes. “What errands could you possibly have? We only got home yesterday!”

That’s really why Brian is in so much trouble here. He hadn’t figured out Christmas gifts before their most recent tour started up, and they only flew back to England a few days before the holiday. Brian is really running this down to the wire this year, and _has_ to find gifts for everyone today.

“It won’t take long,” Brian says as he side-steps the question that Roger actually asked him.

“But it’s our first day back home!” Roger says again. It’s clear that he’s unhappy with Brian’s plans, and as Brian stands up to set his half-finished cup of tea in the sink he presses a kiss to the top of his head in apology.

“I’m sorry. I promise I’ll be back home by dinner,” Brian says.

There’s still a bit of a frown on Roger’s face but he tries to keep his voice light as he says, “Alright, but I’m holding you to that. We still have to decorate for Christmas, you know!”

They had both agreed that they weren’t going to bother with a tree, not when it’s just the two of them and they’re home for less than a month before the next leg of the tour, but it wouldn’t be Christmas without some festive cheer around the house anyway. And with the holiday only days away, there’s not much time left for them to get any decorating done - just like there’s hardly any time for Brian to find gifts for Roger, Freddie, and John.

There’s too much to get done, and too little time left to finish it all. It’s enough to make Brian tense with stress and if he had his way he thinks he might just be tempted to say, to hell with it all, and cancel Christmas altogether.

It’s a sentiment that only grows once Brian heads out of the house and finally reaches the shops. The streets are packed with fellow shoppers and the throngs of people pushing around him are enough to make his skin prickle uncomfortably. He hunches his shoulders, trying to make himself seem smaller in the crowd as he peers in store windows and peruses their shelves, but he can only do so much to hide his height and his unmistakable hair. He’s stopped by more than one star-struck fan, and although he’s polite to them all his smile turns a little more brittle with each interruption to his mission.

He flips through secondhand records and old books, peers into jewelry cases with sales associates hovering over his shoulder in eager anticipation of a large commission, and runs his hands along racks of clothes until all the patterns and designs start to blur together. None of it is right. None of it is _good enough_. His friends mean the world to him and he loves Roger more than he’s ever loved anyone else, and all Brian wants is to give them gifts that will show them how much he cares.

Brian wants - no, he _needs_ \- to give each of them something that is absolutely perfect, and he refuses to leave the shops empty-handed.

The hours quickly slip by, daylight giving way to dusk and finally to the darkness of early winter nights, as Brian keeps stubbornly moving from shop to shop despite the stress headache now pounding behind his eyes. He’s more anxious than he was when he left the house and by the time he finally gives up and heads back to his car he could almost cry with how frustrated he feels.

He still has two days left before Christmas, he tells himself as he turns the key in the ignition and reaches back for his seatbelt. Roger won’t be happy if he has to run out again, but if he can come up with decent gift ideas and has a plan for when he goes shopping then it shouldn’t take this long next time…

“Fuck!” he swears when he catches sight of the time on the car clock. It’s well past dinnertime already and by the time Brian gets home he knows that Roger is going to be furious with him for not following through with his promise to help decorate the house that evening. He slams his hand on the steering wheel and quickly throws the car into reverse. “Shit! _Fuck!_ ”

“Rog, I’m sorry, I’m so fucking sorry,” Brian apologizes as he races inside the house and hurries to take off his coat and scarf. “I lost track of time, I didn’t mean to-”

“Save it,” Roger snaps. He shoves something soft into Brian’s chest as he walks past, and Brian fumbles to catch whatever it is as Roger says, “If you still want to decorate, you can fucking do it yourself. I’ll be in the bedroom.”

“Roger, I’m-” he tries, but Roger is already gone, radiating hurt and anger as he storms off down the hall.

Brian flinches when he hears the bedroom door slam. He deserves Roger’s anger, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less to have it directed so fully at him like this.

Brian looks down at the items that Roger shoved at him, and his heart sinks when he sees that it’s the matching stockings that they bought the first Christmas after they got together. Roger must have gotten out their decorations in anticipation of Brian’s return and sure enough when Brian walks into the living room he can see the boxes that Roger pulled out. He even made some progress in sorting through everything, so they could jump straight into decorating when Brian got home.

Except that Brian wasn’t here to help him like he promised that he would be.

Brian blinks back tears and swallows down a lump in his throat as he carefully hangs the stockings in front of the fireplace. They look a little sad and lonely with the rest of the room still undecorated, but there’s no one to blame for that except Brian himself.

Part of Brian wants to finish decorating everything now but he knows that Roger will only be angrier if he wakes up to find that Brian took care of his favorite part of the Christmas preparations while he was asleep. It’s already bad enough that Brian needs to go back out again tomorrow to keep looking for gifts. Roger is going to be furious about that, but maybe if Brian can come up with a plan for what to buy tonight he sneak out early when the shops first open and get home before Roger wakes up…

Brian’s stomach growls, a reminder that he hasn’t eaten anything since his cup of tea before he left the house. He knows that he should get something for dinner but he doesn’t think he can stand to eat anything when his stomach is still in knots and he doesn’t have the time to waste anyway.

He moves one of the boxes of decorations off of the desk in the corner, grabs a fresh piece of paper and his pen, and settles into the same position he was in last night.

He just needs to think of gifts for his friends. Then he can eat, and apologize to Roger, and once he buys the presents in the morning everything will be alright again.


	2. Chapter 2

Brian jerks awake at a soft touch on his shoulder. He shakes his head and blinks his eyes and turns to face Roger, who’s standing next to him with a look of concern on his face. Roger is once again just in his underwear and an old shirt - one of Brian’s, from the looks of it - and Brian glances at the clock on the mantle.

Not quite midnight yet, but it’s close. He must have fallen asleep while trying to think of gift ideas; between the jetlag from flying back home and then getting hardly any sleep last night, he can feel his exhaustion settling deep in his bones.

“Sorry,” he mumbles as he rubs at his eyes with one hand, and tries to cover up the piece of paper in front of him with his other. “Sorry, I’m sorry, I’m-”

“Brian, it’s okay,” Roger says. He brushes Brian’s hair away from his face and Brian leans into the touch with a tired sigh, his eyes slipping shut against his will. “You know, I was angry at you earlier but that doesn’t mean I was kicking you out of the bedroom entirely. Come back to bed with me. Please.”

That does sound like a nice idea. It’s nice even just sitting here with Roger’s warm hand petting his hair, and it takes some real effort to force his eyes open again and to get his mouth to form the words, “I’ll join you in a minute.”

Roger sighs. “Brian, if I leave you here you’re just going to fall asleep at your desk again. Please just come with me now, alright?”

“I can’t,” Brian says. He pulls away from Roger and that _hurts_ , and even worse he knows that he’s only hurting Roger by doing this - but it can’t be helped. He just needs to sort out his Christmas gifts for his friends, and then everything will be alright again. “I have to keep working-”

“What do you even have to work on?” Roger asks, and Brian can hear how he’s trying to hold his frustration at bay. “It hasn’t even been two months since we finished our last album. We’re still touring with it, for fuck’s sake, and we won’t be recording again until the summer! So whatever song you think you need to finish now, you _don’t_. I promise, it’s okay to set it aside until the holidays are over.”

“I can’t,” Brian says again. He can feel his heart starting to race again and tears are pricking at the corners of his eyes and all he can say is, “I can’t set this aside. It’s not a song and it can’t wait until after the holidays. I need to finish it, I need… I need to...”

He grits his teeth and grips the edge of the desk so tightly that it creaks under his hands. Roger gently reaches for his hands and peels them away from the wood, holding them in his own and giving them a reassuring squeeze, and when Brian looks back up at him he’s smiling, but there’s clear worry in his eyes as well.

“Brian, hey, it’s alright,” he says softly. “Look, what if I help you with this? Two minds are better than one and all that?”

Brian shakes his head. “You can’t help me with this, Rog. I’m sorry.”

“Why not?” Roger asks. “Unless you’re working on something for _me_ , I don’t see why I can’t help you finish this up quicker…”

Brian swallows roughly and doesn’t say anything, and after a beat of silence Roger says, a little more hesitantly, “Please tell me that you’re not making yourself miserable like this just to do something for me.”

Brian looks away from him again and tries to blink back tears. God, he’s such a shitty boyfriend. It’s nearly midnight and Roger is awake and worrying over him instead of sleeping, and all because Brian can’t do something as simple as figuring out Christmas gifts before the very last minute.

“I’m sorry,” he says miserably.

Roger sighs and kneels down in front of him, and gently lifts Brian’s chin so he has no choice but to look at him. “I don’t want you making yourself this upset for my sake. If this is about the decorating earlier, it doesn’t matter. We can do it tomorrow.”

“It’s not about the decorating,” Brian says.

“Then what’s it about?” Roger asks. “Talk to me, Brimi. Please.”

Brian swallows roughly, and he knows that he has to come clean here. It’s bad enough that he’s going to ruin Christmas for everyone; he can’t bear to upset Roger any more than he already has as well.

“I don’t have Christmas present for you or Freddie or John yet,” he admits softly.

Roger lets out a relieved laugh and sits back on his heels. “Brian, is that it? Fuck me, I thought something was really wrong here!”

“Something _is_ wrong!” Brian says. “I only have three days until Christmas and-” The clock on the mantle starts chiming the hour and Brian flinches at the noise.

“ _Two_ days until Christmas,” he corrects. “And I have _no idea_ what to get you guys! We have proper money now and I want to get you all something special - something _perfect_ \- but I can’t think of anything.” He buries his face in his hands and mumbles, “I don’t want to give you something stupid and have anyone think that I don’t care.”

“No one’s going to think that,” Roger says. Brian scoffs, and Roger says firmly, “I’m serious, Brian. We all know you, and you show us how much you care in so many ways throughout the year that it doesn’t matter if you don’t give us perfect gifts for Christmas.”

Brian shakes his head. “It _does_ matter. But it’s all fucking pointless because I can’t think of anything to give you guys and I couldn’t find anything in the shops today-”

“Oh,” Roger says softly. “That was the errand you were running, wasn’t it?”

“It was,” Brian admits. “Not that it did me any good. I didn’t buy anything, and then I lost track of time and made you upset.”

“I was a little angry, yeah, but we can always decorate the house tomorrow. It’s not a big deal,” Roger tells him. “And you know what? If we get up a bit earlier, I bet we’ll have plenty of time to decorate in the morning and then we can still make it out to the shops in the afternoon.”

Brian looks up at him slowly, not sure that he heard Roger correctly. “ _We_ can make it out to the shops?” he echoes, questioningly.

“I’ll help you find gifts for Freddie and John,” Roger says. “If you want, I can even pick out my own gift, but-” Brian quickly shakes his head and Roger laughs. “Yeah, I didn’t think you’d want my help with that. If you change your mind, though, I really don’t mind giving you some ideas.”

“I’ll take any help I can get for Freddie and John, but what sort of boyfriend would I be if I couldn’t even think of something to get you on my own?” Brian says.

“You’d be the same wonderful and ridiculous boyfriend that you are now, but you’d maybe be a bit less stressed at the end of all of this,” Roger teases.

Despite himself, Brian manages a small smile at that.

“C’mon,” Roger says. He stands back up, and offers a hand to Brian. “Let’s go to bed, yeah? I promise I’ll help you figure this out in the morning.”

Brian stares at Roger’s outstretched hand for a second, before taking it and letting himself be pulled to his feet. The knot of anxiety in his chest is still there but it’s starting to loosen a little and Brian finds himself relaxing against Roger’s side as the drummer wraps an arm around his waist and leads the way back to the bedroom.  
  


* * *

  
Roger ends up letting Brian sleep in until nearly noon the next day. Brian feels much better now that he’s finally gotten some proper rest, but when Roger suggests that they run out to the shops first he puts his foot down and insists that they decorate the house before they do anything else.

“I’m the reason we didn’t get this done last night,” he says as sets a nutcracker on top of the mantle. “So we’ll sort this out first, and then head out.”

It’s the least Brian can do to make things up to him, after all, and judging by Roger’s pleased smile as he digs through the boxes of decorations it’s the right thing to do. And with the two of them working it doesn’t take long anyway before the house is fully decorated and full of warm, festive cheer.

“Do you have any ideas for what you want to give John and Freddie?” Roger asks once they’re finished and they start to don their coats and shoes.

Brian shakes his head. “That’s the problem. I can’t even think of a single thing that’ll be good enough for them.” He sighs in frustration and adds, “I’m sorry. I know I’m being stupid about this, but I just-”

“You just want to give your friends something special this year. There’s nothing wrong with that,” Roger says, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. Roger understands Brian, and he knows why this is important to him even if Brian himself is struggling to explain it properly.

Roger loops a scarf around Brian’s neck and uses that to pull him in close. “Luckily, you have me to help save the day,” he teases. “And I’ll expect a proper thank you for all my hard work when we get home.”

“If we manage to find gifts today, I’ll spend the next _month_ showing my appreciation,” Brian promises.

Roger leans up and kisses him. “I’m going to hold you to that,” he says, and Brian has no doubt that he will.

Buoyed by Roger’s bright optimism, Brian finds that he almost enjoys shopping today. It’s nice to be out and about with Roger, peering into the festive storefronts and catching snatches of holiday music drifting out of the shops. Even the fans that come up to them don’t feel as intrusive as they did when Brian was shopping alone, or maybe that’s just that Roger is better at interacting with them than Brian is. Brian loves their fans, of course he does, but he still struggles to graciously accept the adoration that he doesn’t always feel he deserves.

“So, anything catching your interest, Bri?” Roger asks after they’ve said goodbye to the latest fan who stopped to say hello.

“Mm, not yet, no.” Brian glances around to see if any of the storefronts look promising - and one of them does catch his eye now, though not for the reason Roger asked about.

Next to him Roger is rambling off suggestions for gifts, unaware that Brian’s attention is now elsewhere. “What about accessories? A scarf for Freddie, maybe a wallet or something for John…” When Brian doesn’t answer right away, Roger nudges him slightly and says, “Brian? You listening?”

“Hm? Yeah, yeah, of course…” He glances down at Roger, but it isn’t long before his eyes are sliding back over to the storefront that caught his attention. “Sorry, can we take a look at that antique shop for a second?”

“Yeah, of course.” Roger quickly checks for traffic and then darts out into the street, leaving Brian to stumble after him with a quiet curse before another car comes along. “Found a potential gift?” he asks with an innocent grin when Brian joins him on the opposite sidewalk.

“Not exactly,” Brian says as he walks over to the antique shop window.

There, nestled among the dusty china sets and vintage bric-a-brac, is an old camera. Brian recognized it from across the street, and now that they’re looking at it up close Roger recognizes it as well.

“That’s a 3-D camera, isn’t it?” he asks. He’s seen Brian using his often enough that it’s no surprise Roger knows what it is.

Brian nods. “Yeah. An old Stereo Realist.” He leans a little closer to the glass and peers down at it. “Looks like it’s in great condition, too.”

“You going to get it?” Roger asks.

“I really shouldn’t,” Brian says with a small sigh. “I probably can’t afford it, anyway. Not with still having to buy three Christmas gifts yet today.” They may have some more money these days, after all, but he knows how much these cameras can cost and he’s well aware of what his own budget looks like.

Brian sighs again and goes to turn away from the window, but Roger catches his elbow and pulls him back in place. “Wait. What about buying it for John?” he suggests.

“For John?” Brian echoes. “I know he loves photography _in general_ , but… Well, is he even interested in stereo photography in particular?”

“He likes borrowing your cameras though,” Roger points out. “And I know for a fact that he’s tried to take some 3-D photos without ‘em before.”

“He has?” Brian didn’t know that. He’d showed all of them the “rocking technique” to take stereo photos without the specialized camera, but he never knew that any of them actually attempted it on their own.

“I think he wanted to perfect it so he could wow you with his skills later, but he got tired of wasting film,” Roger admits with a grin, and Brian laughs at that because that does sound _exactly_ like something John would do. “And anyway, it’s a nice piece of equipment and John will appreciate that at least.”

“That’s true,” Brian has to admit. “And he’d probably use it at least a few times, assuming that it works at all.”

“Well, there’s only one way to find that out,” Roger says and he pushes Brian over towards the shop door.

Roger goes to find someone to pull the camera from the window display case, leaving Brian to poke through the rest of the store’s wares. He loves proper antique shops like this - which isn’t to say that he doesn’t have fond memories of Roger’s and Freddie’s old Kensington Market stall, but it is nice to run his hands through the old coats without worrying that they’re secretly infested with something. And maybe more importantly, Roger and Freddie both love antique shops too and Brian is tentatively hopeful that he might be able to cross more than one item off his list with this single stop.

There’s a few vintage scarves towards the back that catch his eye, but before he even makes it that far he gets distracted by a shelf of trinket boxes - including several that look to be Japanese. They’re pretty but they’re also nothing fancy, just dark wood lacquer with simple inlay designs on the top, and Brian studies them carefully as he tries to decide if one would make a good gift for Freddie or not.

“So, there’s good news and bad news,” Roger says as he wanders over. “Good news is that the camera works. Bad news is that that obviously makes it more expensive.”

“How much is it?” Brian asks. Roger names a price and Brian hums a little, thinking it over. “That’s not unreasonable, actually.”

“You gonna get it then?”

“Think so, yeah.” Brian flashes Roger a small smile and adds, “You did a pretty good job of selling me on it, after all.”

Roger grins up at him and presses a hair closer to him, just enough that Brian can feel the warmth of his body without sacrificing too much of the plausible deniability that colors all of their actions in public.

“That’s what I’m here for,” he says cheerfully. He nods at the boxes on the shelf in front of them and asks, “And it looks like you’ve found something for Freddie too, yeah?”

“How’d you figure that out?”

“I _do_ know what Freddie’s tastes are,” Roger says with a laugh. “Once I saw what you were looking at, it wasn’t hard too know what you were thinking. And I think it’s a good idea.”

“You do?” Brian asks. “It’s not too…”

“Whatever you’re thinking - no, it’s not,” Roger says. “They’re exactly Freddie’s style, they’re vintage, they’re in great condition… Why wouldn’t it be a great idea?”

“Because of those prices,” Brian says. He points towards the price tags, and Roger winces. “So I’d only be able to get him one, and then I’d just be giving him _one box_. Deacy at least, is getting something he might be able to use. The box would just be a pretty decoration.”

“Sometimes there’s nothing wrong with just a pretty decoration,” Roger says.

Brian makes a face and Roger sighs, and Brian’s stomach twists with guilt. He knows that he’s being difficult, and Roger really has the patience of the saint for helping him with this.

“Alright then, what if you made it a bit more personal?” Roger suggests. “Like putting something else inside the box before you give it to him.”

Brian stamps down on his impulse to reject the suggestion immediately, and instead thinks that over for a moment. “I do have some photos I took of Freddie and his cats, when he moved into his new place…” he says hesitantly, unsure if the idea is a good one or not, and he glances at Roger to gauge his reaction.

Roger is beaming up at him and he says, “I think that’d be a great idea, yeah. And you definitely can’t go wrong when you play into his love for his cats.”

That’s certainly true enough and Brian laughs a little, feeling like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders now that he’s found suitable gifts for his friends. “Perfect. So that’s that sorted, then.”

“Seems like it, yeah,” Roger agrees. “The camera’s waiting up at the register, so if you want to grab the box we’ll check out and-”

“Actually, ah… Would you mind waiting outside for me?” Brian asks.

Roger raises an eyebrow at him. “Did you find something for me too?” he asks excitedly, looking down at Brian’s hands as if the guitarist would just be holding it already for him to see.

“Maybe? I’m not really sure yet,” Brian says.

Roger’s face falls a little bit and Brian decides then and there that, screw it, he’s just going to buy one of those scarves for Roger. It might not be the most inspired gift, but if it’s a choice between dragging Roger to a dozen more stores or going home to spend the rest of the day curled up together on the sofa…

Well. When put like that, the choice is an easy one.

“Actually, you know what? I _have_ found something for you,” Brian says and he knows he’s made the right choice when Roger immediately perks back up. “So go wait outside while I buy it, and then we’ll be all set here.”

“Perfect. Just don’t take too long!” Roger says, and as he heads out of the shop Brian all but sprints to the back of the store to pick out a scarf as quickly as he can - because he’ll be damned if he keeps his boyfriend waiting a second longer than is necessary.


	3. Chapter 3

Brian spends the rest of the day and well into the evening showing his appreciation to Roger, and it’s late afternoon on Christmas Eve by the time he settles down to wrap the gifts he bought. Roger already has his taken care of and is lounging on the couch with _It’s A Wonderful Life_ playing on the TV in the background as Brian lays out his supplies and gets to work.

“Will you help me pick out photos to give to Freddie?” Brian asks as he tapes down the last corner of John’s gift. He had cleaned the camera and loaded a new roll of film into it, but Freddie’s gift will need a bit more consideration than that and Brian will be grateful for Roger’s help in sorting through all the available photos.

“I can, yeah,” Roger says as he sits up. “Where are the photos?”

“Well, that’s the thing…” Brian pulls over a large shoebox and takes off the lid, revealing stacks upon stacks of photos. Some are stereo mounts and some are polaroids, but most are just regular photos taken over the span of many years.

“I don’t suppose these are sorted in any way?” Roger asks as he leans down and rifles through the first few of them.

“No, and that’s only the first box,” Brian tells him.

“The _first_ box?” Roger echoes as he looks up at Brian again.

Brian bites his lip and nods sheepishly. “There’s a second one, about the same size. I figure if you take one, and I take the other…”

“We can get through them quicker,” Roger finishes for him. “Yeah, alright. Just looking for photos of Freddie and his cats, then?”

“I think so, yeah,” Brian says. “If there are any others that catch your eye that’s fine, but I think if we try to seriously consider every single photo in here we’ll still be looking through them come the New Year.”

Roger laughs. “Well, we can’t have that,” he says. He pulls the box up onto the sofa so he can look through the photos properly. “Don’t worry, with the two of us going through these we’ll find ones for Freddie in no time.”

“No time” might be a bit optimistic, but it’s still not a bad way to spend part of their Christmas Eve. With the movie playing in the background and the lights turned down low, the room feels warm and cozy around them and Brian settles onto the sofa next to Roger, who snuggles up close to his side as he keeps leafing through the photos. Brian looks through his own box, picking out a few photos that he think Freddie might like and trying not to get too sidetracked by the memories that are stirred up with each new photograph that he flips past.

“Oh,” Roger says softly after several long minutes of comfortable silence.

“Hm? Did you find a good one?” Brian asks him.

“Sort of,” Roger says. “Not for Freddie, but… Well here, take a look.” He pulls it out of the box and hands it over to Brian.

Brian recognizes it immediately. It’s one of the photos that Smile took in front of the Royal Albert Hall, before their performance there back in early ‘69. It’s strange to think that they’re coming up on a decade since then - and that it’s been just over a decade already since he first met Roger. It feels like a lifetime ago and yet Roger is such an intrinsic part of his life that he can hardly believe that he’s only known him for ten short years.

“I forgot I had these,” Brian admits as he studies the photo. He’s sitting down next to Tim, both of them laughing, while Roger stands over them wearing his old bulky fur coat. It was one of the few photos from that day that wasn’t carefully staged in some way, and Brian loves it all the more for how candid it is.

“ _These_?” Roger echoes. “You have more than just this one?”

“I’m pretty sure I have all of them from that day,” Brian says. “I have a box of much older photos buried somewhere in the back of closet, and I _think_ everything from Smile is in there.” The photos should be there, at least, but it’s been so long since Brian looked through all his photos that he’s not entirely sure what he still has and what was lost years ago.

“If you ever find them again, I’d love to take a look at them,” Roger says as he plucks the photo back out of Brian’s hands. He lingers with it for a moment longer, before placing it carefully at the top of the box where it can easily be found again.

In the end, it takes them nearly an hour to pick out a dozen or so photos for Brian to give to Freddie. He tucks them carefully inside the antique box which he does his best to wrap as neatly as possible. It’s out of his hands now, and he can only hope that his friends like the gifts as much as Roger seems to think that they will.

There’s just one thing left for him to take care of, and as he gathers up the wrapped presents and the boxes of photos he kisses Roger gently and says, “I’ll be right back. Just have to wrap yours now.”

He has Roger’s gift hidden in a bag underneath a pile of blankets on the top shelf of their closet, and as he pulls it out he accidentally causes the blankets to fall to the ground. He grumbles as he gathers them up, but as he shoves them back on the shelf he hits his hand against something solid. Frowning, he reaches up to grab it - and realizes that it’s the third box of photos, the one he couldn’t find in his brief search earlier.

He pulls it down and opens it up and there, sitting right on top, are the rest of the Smile photos. They’re certainly a sight to see, with their questionable hair choices and those paper mouths that Tim had made for them to wear, but it _is_ nice to see them again. Brian pulls them out and sets them aside, intending to bring them into the living room to show to Roger, but he pauses when he sees the rest of the photos in the box.

Photos of Roger and him at Smile rehearsals. In the old house on Ferry Road, some just the two of them and some with Freddie and Tim and all their other old school friends there as well. At early Queen shows, with Mike on bass instead of John, and some photos that were clearly taken in private in the early days of their relationship - of Roger sleeping, or the two of them curled up in bed together, half out of the frame because Brian had turned the camera around and was holding it himself trying take a photo of them both.

He knows that Roger has his share of old odds-and-ends like this, but most of these photos were taken by Brian and he knows that he has the only copies of them. There’s a decade’s worth of photos here, a decade of his friendship and later his relationship with Roger captured in these snapshots, and they deserve better than to be shoved in a shoebox and lost in his closet.

And once Brian has that thought, the beginning of an idea starts to come to him.

“Brian! Did you get lost trying to wrap my gift?” Roger calls from the living room, and even from across the house Brian can hear the smile in his voice and he can perfectly imagine the grin that he knows must be on Roger’s face right now.

“I’ll be back in a second!” he yells back as he quickly rifles through the photos, pulling out as many of him and Roger as he can find from each of the boxes, hastily curating a selection of memories and trying not to overthink this last-minute plan of his.

When he finally returns to the living room nearly ten minutes later, he graciously accepts Roger’s teasing for taking so long - and tries not to give away that he now has _two_ gifts waiting for his boyfriend to open tomorrow.  
  


* * *

  
“I told you they’d like the gifts,” Roger says as they walk back into their house after having late drinks with Freddie and John at Freddie’s place on Christmas evening.

He’s a little smug, but he has every right to be and Brian says, “Yes, you were right. And honestly, I can’t thank you enough for helping me find those.”

John had been thrilled when he opened his gift and saw the stereo camera, and had immediately cracked a joke about how happy he was that he wouldn’t have to try to steal Brian’s when they were on tour anymore. And Freddie had fallen in love with the box the moment that he saw it, but it was when he’d opened it and seen the photos and gone quiet that Brian knew that he had struck gold.

“You don’t need to thank me,” Roger says as he sheds his coat and toes off his shoes. “Although…” He gives Brian a mischievous grin. “If you _wanted_ to show me how grateful you are for my wonderful help, I certainly wouldn’t say no to that.”

Brian laughs. “Didn’t I already thank you like that after we got back from shopping?”

“Sure, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do it again,” Roger points out.

“Maybe later,” Brian says. “I have something else for you first.”

“Wait, what? You do?” Roger sounds surprised at that. “But we already exchanged gifts!”

They had, before they left for Freddie’s. Roger had loved the scarf that Brian picked out for him, blue with dark spots that almost looked like a leopard print. It was a bit gaudy but in the exact way that Roger seemed to love, and he had immediately put it on over his Christmas jumper and refused to take it off for most of the day. He’d only switched it out for a different scarf when they had to leave to go to Freddie’s, and Brian had pointed out that he’d be warmer if he wasn’t wearing vintage silk.

Roger’s gift to Brian was even better, though: two sets of the antique diableries stereo cards that Brian has been slowly collecting over the years. They were images that Brian didn’t already own and Roger had explained that he had gone looking through Brian’s collection to make sure that he didn’t give him any duplicates. He had told him that a bit hesitantly, like he was afraid that Brian might be upset with him for going through his things, but Brian wasn’t upset at all. He was so overwhelmed by the care Roger put into his gift that all he could do was kiss him in thanks until they were both breathless.

After such a thoughtful gift, Brian is certainly happy that he had the idea for Roger’s second present and he gives him a quick kiss and says, “I know, but I have one more for you. Go wait in the living room, I’ll be right back with it.”

Roger still looks torn between guilt that he didn’t get Brian a second gift as well and excitement for whatever it is that Brian has for him - but by the time Brian returns with the gift, Roger only hesitates for a moment before starting to tear the wrapping paper off.

“Careful with it now!” Brian says, just before Roger gets through the paper and the stack of photos comes tumbling out.

Roger quickly grabs for them before they can fall to the floor, but when he looks down at them he goes very still and very quiet. Brian holds his breath for what seems like a small eternity, before Roger finally softly says, “I can’t believe you found them already.”

The first photo is of Roger and Brian on stage at some now-unknown Smile show. Roger is in the middle of drumming and Brian is standing to the side, watching him with a look of unmistakable awe on his face. Roger flips through the photos, slowly at first, and then quicker and quicker, as if he _needs_ to see every single one as quickly as possible.

Roger and Brian laying on one of their beds at Ferry Road, Roger’s head nestled in the crook of Brian’s shoulder even though they weren’t dating at the time. Brian with his head thrown back, laughing at something that Freddie said, and Roger looking at him with the softest expression imaginable on his face. The two of them sitting on Roger’s drum riser before an early Queen show, and perched in the back of the van with their equipment stacked high behind them, and walking down some street in America on their first trip there, and Roger leaning up to kiss Brian’s cheek as the takes a photo of the the two of them in some hotel bathroom while on tour...

The photos aren’t technically perfect. The two of them aren’t always centered in the frame, especially for the ones they took themselves, and even when someone else was the photographer they were often captured in motion, Roger’s hands a blur as he drums or Brian’s face smeared as he turned towards the camera at the last second.

But the photos are of _them_ , at their best and their worst and sometimes their most intimate - and that makes them, if nothing else, absolutely irreplaceable.

“Brian, I…” He looks up at Brian with tears pricking at the corner of his eyes and he laughs and scrubs one hand over his face. “I can’t believe you had these in a shoebox somewhere! You idiot, you should put them in a scrapbook or display them around the house or something!”

He goes to hand them back over to Brian. Instead of taking them, though, Brian pushes them back towards Roger and tells him, “Well, you can do whatever you want with them now.”

Roger’s smile slips a little and he cocks his head, giving Brian a confused look. “What do you mean?”

“They’re a gift, aren’t they? That means they’re yours now,” Brian explains.

Roger’s breath hitches a little and he looks down at the photos again “You’re giving them to me?” he asks, like he can’t quite believe that that’s what’s happening here.

“I am,” Brian tells him. There’s a pit of nerves in his stomach and he’s starting to worry that he made a mistake here. It’s clear that Roger loves the photos but maybe giving them to him like this was the wrong thing to do here.

Still, Brian tries to push down his nervousness to explain, “You were right, Rog. I shouldn’t be keeping these out of sight in a box, and I definitely shouldn’t have been keeping them from _you_ all this time. We’ve known each other for a decade now and I think it’s about time we celebrated that… don’t you?”

Roger cups Brian’s cheek in one hand and leans in to kiss him, and it’s so gentle that it makes Brian’s chest ache from the tenderness of it all.

“I fucking love you so much,” Roger whispers against his lips. “Thank you, Brian. Seriously, this is...” He laughs softly, disbelieving, and shakes his head as he pulls back from Brian. His eyes are still watery but he’s smiling so brightly that Brian can feel his nerves start to disappear even before Roger says, “This is the best gift you could’ve given me. I love that you held onto these for all these years and seeing them again is just… It’s incredible.”

“I’m glad you like it,” Brian tells him. “After you found that one last night and I stumbled across the rest when I went to wrap your scarf, it didn’t feel right to keep these from you.”

Roger looks down at the photos in his hands again, and he strokes his thumb gently over the one on top, a soft smile on his face. “Yeah, I’m glad you didn’t do that.” He glances back up at Brian and asks, “Will you help me figure out what to do with them?”

“Yes,” Brian says. “I mean, if you want me to.”

“Of course I want you to. They’re _our_ photos, and _we_ should decide how to display them together,” Roger says firmly.

“Alright,” Brian agrees with a small laugh. “That sounds like perfect plan to me.”

“Good,” Roger says. “Now, you don’t have any more surprises up your sleeves, do you?”

“No? Why-?”

That’s all he gets out before Roger carefully sets the photos aside, and crawls over to settle in Brian’s lap. “Because I think it’s _my_ turn to show you how grateful I am,” he purrs, and he leans in to kiss Brian again.


End file.
